


Mud-on-Her-Face

by Watchword



Category: Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Gen, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-08 02:16:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12854589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Watchword/pseuds/Watchword
Summary: The adventures of a morally defunct racist sociopath who nobody likes.





	1. Chapter 1

My mother is a whore and I do not know who my father is. Nor do my brothers. We all have such different faces that I think we must be fathered by half of the village. We were all born from the same clutch, which I think my mother laid and buried while drunk. She forgot about us. Six months later, we came out of the garden peeping, and she groaned and said, “Gods, gods, what horrible thing is this?”

My mother is a devil, but she is not monster enough to kill us, even though she sat and considered it for two whole days.

My mother was more careful after that. She and her husband would take all of her eggs and throw them at the tree behind the house for sport. When we were very small, my mother’s husband would say to us, “You are still small enough to throw at that tree!” He would chase us, and if we were not fast enough he would catch us and throw us with all his strength. But at these times, he was drunk or on the Skooma, and we only landed in the pond. On account of this, we are very good swimmers.

I liked my brothers. There were four of them. I am the only girl; this did not matter. My brothers would say, “Let’s go hunt,” and I would go hunt fish, frogs, and earthworms with them. Once we fought a big pig with tusks as long as my hand is now. It was my bite that tore his throat out. I was four, I think.

We learned about what to eat and how to prepare it by watching the people from the village. We had to sneak because if they found us they would curse us and throw rocks. The women can’t aim well because they spend their time around the home with the hatchlings and the gardens, so we stole from them all the time.

But the men are different. Most of them are good hunters, and they are frightening, especially if they have a sling. They would sling rocks at us all the way home and hit us every time. The third or fourth time they chased us, they came all the way to our house and broke all of our nice glass windows from Cyrodiil. My mother slumped out of the door with a bottle hanging on the crook of her claw and threw it at them, and they called her a whore. She cursed back at them and called them beasts, and when she saw her broken windows she beat us and called us bastards.

At first, we were called “bastards” all the time, and didn’t have names at all. If my mother wanted something, she would say, “You, there!” and whoever was closest would have to help her. But she almost never talked to me, and sometimes when she saw my face she would blow up her throat and struggle not to speak. Then she would cry out, “Girl! Get out of my house!” and throw old beer bottles and trash at me. It was only me she hated like this. Sometimes she said, “Why do you have those eyes?” or “That face! That face! The gods hate me, that is why they gave you that face.”

When I was old enough to understand her, I wondered, what face was that? I did not know. So I went to a still pool and stared into it. My reflection was like everyone in my house. I had a face like theirs, and eyes like theirs. Like my mother, my scales were a bronze color, and butter-yellow on the palms of my hands and my belly. I had a little crown of horns like a male. I stared at myself a very long time, and examined every part of me. I thought for a long, long time. This is when I realized that she hated me because I was ugly. After this, I would only go into the house if I had smeared mud all over my face.

Then one night when I was underneath a bush thinking, I became embarrassed. I remembered that when the hunters slung rocks at me and my brothers, I was always the one they hit the most, and that when people looked at us they looked at me first and blew up their throats. So I started smearing mud on my face all of the time. This is where I got my name: Mud-on-Her-Face.

For six or seven years—I cannot remember the exact number—I ran wild with my brothers. We learned speech from my mother and her lovers; none of it was good. She took men at all times of day and night. The men were often the hunters who threw rocks at us. We stole their slings if they brought them; this is where we learned to make weapons like theirs. We only stopped stealing from them because my mother threatened to force us out of the house. What did we have if we lost the house? Nothing. We would have been true beasts.

When my mother was entertaining, she was shameless. If she were only a little drunk, she pushed us out of the house and drew a curtain across the door. You could hear everything and see shadows. It was a foul thing. But if she were very drunk she had no care for anything at all and did not draw the curtain. If we were there, we would see everything. That was when I decided I hated all people… all except for my brothers and the traveling salesman.

The salesman was old and tall with dark brown scales that turned a little purple around his throat and the joints and knuckles of his fingers and toes. He sold books and leaves from strange lands, which had been wrapped up in paper packets. I know because I opened his pack when his back was turned. I did not take anything because it was all very strange stuff and I couldn’t eat any of it.

After he finished with my mother, he dressed and waited until she was asleep. Then he called us into the house. Only I came in, because I was curious about the paper packets. I was naked and I had mud on my face. I think I was five, maybe six.

First he gave me a blanket from his pack and told me to cover and clean myself, because I was of the People of the Root and not a beast to crawl on my belly in the swamp.

“What People?” I asked, because I was young and very stupid.

He paled and sucked the breath out of his throat. “You don’t know?”

“What don’t I know?”

So he sat down in front of the fire with me. He took a cup of water and gently washed the mud off of my face. As he did, he told me how I was an Argonian, a child of the People of the Root. We are the oldest people in the world, and we are the wisest, for we are the only ones smart enough to live in the Black Marsh and not die. In fact, we are so smart, that the Imperials (a kind of pale soft-skin whose province is “Cyrodiil,” the place where we got our windows) could not take the Marsh by force. Instead it was because some clans signed a paper and gave it away like fools. Now the clans have to give money to the soft-skin emperor. This made me blow up my throat and clench my jaw.

The salesman told me that in the old days we had great cities, although they were not built of stone because we loved the swamps too well. The buildings were of trees, which we trained to grow tall and thick. We lived in the trunks, where we learned great magical secrets and wrote great texts. We have minds for words, which we learn by heart and teach to our children.

He said to me, “This is why you must love wisdom. Books contain wisdom, and can live far longer than we do, so you must love them more than yourself and treat them well. Learn to read and you can unlock all of the secrets of the world. Bring this wisdom back to your clan and build up your People. But do not give wisdom to the soft-skins. We taught the soft-skins about the plants and how to hunt, and they repaid us by enslaving us and stealing our land. There is only one soft-skin you can trust. That is a Khajiit. They look like cats and are covered in hair. Have you seen a cat?”

“I ate one once. It was orange.”

“Ah. You must never eat cats. In fact, you must be kind to them, for they are the little cousins of the Khajiit. Sometimes they are only checking on us to make sure we aren’t getting too friendly with the soft-skins.”

“A soft-skin? You say this over and over but I don’t understand.”

“A soft-skin is anything that walks on two legs, speaks, and has no scales. You can only trust the cats. All else, you should approach with caution. In fact, there is one soft-skin you must not only distrust, you must hate.”

“Which one is that?”

“The Dunmer, the Dark Elves. They have skin that is gray like the bark of a willow tree, and red eyes like a devil. They are so evil that they will take us away from the Black Marsh and chain us up in Morrowind, a dreadful land where they will work us until we die.” He leaned down very close and stared me in the eye. “You must never trust a Dark Elf and you must never, ever go to Morrowind.”

Even though I had never trusted a man in my life, I leaned forward and said, “All right.” I have remembered his words ever since, and experience has taught me that those words were wise.

After that, he opened all of the packets and brought out plants and powders. He told me all their names and what they could be used for. He gave me some seeds to sow and told me how to tend them. Then he opened a book. He showed me a map of the Black Marsh and pointed to its heart. “This is where you live,” he said. “You are of the Marsh-Heart Clan.” Then he read me a story about our People and their clans.

“The soft-skins think we are stupid and do not know about our great history,” he said. “They think if a building is not made of stone, it isn’t a building worth having. Ha! If they were born Argonian in the long-ago days, in the City of Trees, they would know better!”

He sat beside me all night and never stopped talking. I drank all of his words like my mother drank saltrice wine. My brothers lingered at the door at first, but then they grew bored and went off to catch frogs. I was the only hungry one in the morning, but it didn’t matter, because my head was full of good words.

The salesman’s last words to me were, “Do not be like your mother.” Then he set his hand on my head and he said something in another tongue.

I like to think that man is my father. I look for him everywhere so I can ask him what he said when I was little. I would like to ask for the honor to call him Father and care for him in his old age.

Because of him, I was changed forever. I started a garden in the swamp. I learned about the roots and the mushrooms and how to make fire, which is not easy in a land where the ground and tinder is always wet. I found the old schoolhouse at the edge of the village where all the children from the clan go for lessons. I sat in the back of the class, where everyone ignored me, and I learned how to read. Reading was very hard because the teacher would not lend me books. So I would practice on signs, and when my mother entertained travelers, I would go through their packs for books. Only one man had a book, but that book was a prayer-book to soft-skin gods, so it had no wisdom in it. I threw it in the pond.

When I was eight, I grew very brave and went into the town square with the old blanket around my shoulders. I went to the Priest and said, “You, teach me all about the plants.”

“Get out of my sight, bastard,” he said, and threw dirt at me.

So I went to the doctor and I said, “You, teach me all about the plants.”

“Begone and be drowned,” he said, and slammed his door. He had a house like the soft-skins, although I did not know this at the time. Later I would hate him for it.

When my brothers heard I went into the village and talked to the people there, they said, “Are you mad? Have you become sick?”

“No,” I said. “But I must not be like our mother.”

“Of course you aren’t like our mother,” they said. “Come on, we have to hunt. It is not the same without you, sister.”

“No,” I said. (It was hard to say this.) “I must learn. It is the only way. If you were wise you would come with me.”

But they were not wise.

So I continued to learn without them. When the doctor and the Priest would leave their houses, I sneaked in and read their books. I memorized everything I read. The books were full of words and pictures I did not understand, but I would say the words over and over and remember them. One day I found a word I could not figure out, although I thought about it for days and days. So I went to the doctor’s house. He was in his yard tending to his garden, because he was old and could not hunt. He was useless, like a wife.

“Hey,” I said. “What is the meaning of the word ‘vivisection’?”

He stood up and blinked at me, and then he leaned forward (for he was very old and his eyes were gray with cataracts), and he said, “You! Are you the one whose muddy handprints are all over my books?”

“Yes,” I said. “I read them every time you and your useless servant leave.”

“Gods! I lock my door!”

“I don’t go through your door. I go through your window.”

He looked at me very closely, and did not speak. For a minute, we stared at each other.

Then he said, “I have an apprentice already, so I cannot pay you anything if you work for me. I can only feed you a little.”

I said, “I will do anything for you if you will teach me about plants.”

“Very well, come inside,” he said. “You will start by cleaning my books.”

And that is how I came to live in a proper house with proper people, how I learned to write and read very well, and how to speak and eat in a manner that is pleasing. I left my mother’s house and my brothers, too. Sometimes I saw my brothers running naked through the reeds, with chickens under their arms and angry husbands chasing them with sticks and slings. Two of them were killed in this way when I was eleven. I am sure the other two are still out in the mud, living like beasts. I was a little sorry at first, but not anymore. After all, they did not listen to me.


	2. Chapter 2

I never learned the doctor’s name, just as I never learned my mother’s. It did not matter; all he was good for was his knowledge, just as all she was good for was her body.

He taught me about time. He was the only person in my village who kept track of it. So he knew the stars and the time of year when I was born. He knew because he had known my mother when I was new. I was born in the Third Era, in the year 408, upon the nineteenth of Frostfall, beneath the sign of the Tower. No longer was I a beast, to creep about without any knowledge of my age.

For eight years, I did everything he ordered: I kept his house clean and made him supper. I slept on a pad by the fire. Every day I went out hunting like a man, sometimes fighting my own brothers for the fattest pigs and biggest fish. The useless apprentice sat beside the doctor at mealtime and went with him on every call. When there was no one to heal, the apprentice was lazy and lolled around the house crying about boredom.

“Stop your whining,” I told him one day, when I had come into the house with a basket of roots for poultices and a string of fish over my shoulder. “You have twenty good books here and outside there are plants to study.”

Then he called me a bastard and something else, but I forgot. That night I only made meat for the doctor and myself. He learned to stop talking to me. I liked that fine.

I do not like people or healing, but I needed to know what the doctor knew, so I begged to go on trips with him. Sometimes they took me with them, but I had to insist strongly and threaten not to feed them. Finally, the doctor said he would take me on visits twice a week.

The people of my clan did not like it when he brought me. They thought I was dirty, even though I no longer covered my face in mud. Later I realized it was because of my mother. Blood is important. According to many books in the Black Marsh, the woman gives of her flesh to the hatchling, and the father gives the spirit. The women pass their blood through the eggs while they are in the body and give this to their children. So I decided I would bleed all her blood out of me, like they do for illness in the soft-skin cities of Cyrodiil.

I spent a long time over the book on anatomy, which said how much a female Argonian weighs, and how much blood they have. This is where I learned the word “vivisection.” It means, “to operate upon while alive.” The soft-skin who wrote it was a Dark Elf and this is only one more reason we must hate them. But the death of my marsh-sister is not for nothing. Thanks to it, I knew how much blood I would need to lose to rid myself of my mother.

I could not bleed everything out at once, or I would die. So I decided to bleed a bowl of blood every week until I bled all of my mother’s blood out. When I went hunting, I took my flint knife, and would kneel out in the marshes and pray to the gods of the earth. I bled extra to be sure she was gone from me. It took many months. When I was finally done, I felt a rushing lightness and was free. That is why I am now clean and my own person.

 

&&&&&&&

 

I did not only study the doctor’s books. I studied the plants while I hunted, and learned when they took root, flowered, and died. I still tended a garden, although I had moved my plants from behind my mother’s hut to a new, safer place, in a hollow a half-mile from town. I brought samples of various flora back to the doctor’s house and asked him what they were and what they were used for. An hour every day, he would teach me about plants and how to take care of the body. I memorized all of his books and said them like prayers wherever I went. The people of the village would say to their hatchlings, “That is Mud-on-Her-Face, and she is crazy.”

When I was sixteen, the doctor began to repeat himself, and I could treat wounds and illness passably. So I left. I walked out onto the road with a long stick I had sharpened, my flint knife, and a bag made of pig-hide. Inside of my bag, I kept a long roll of waxy water-proof paper, which I wrote on with water-fast ink made from a root. I wandered through the Black Marsh looking at all of the plants and keeping good notes. This is when I made my mistake.

I was just seventeen when I decided to stay the cool season near a stream, to study a kind of lily growing there. When I broke the stem a strange yellow sap came out which made the tongue tingle. So I decided I would take a while to study the lily. At this time I was very close to the border with Morrowind. I did not know this. Even had I known, I would not have cared. The doctor had told me that soft-skins hated the Black Marshes and the Black Marshes hated the soft-skins, so I didn’t think they were any concern of mine.

I was a fool.

The slavers took me while I was sleeping. I woke to a flash of torches and strange people with flat faces and soft skin, all of whom were speaking in a language I did not know. Their eyes were red in the firelight and they had black hair as wiry as a horse’s. They bared their teeth, which were white and flat. How I hate those teeth! They are unnatural. Bloodthirsty things should not have such flat teeth.

“Gods! Gods!” I said. “Save your servant!” When they jerked me to my feet and clapped irons on my ankles, I tore into them. I bit every man I could. I tore a soft-skin’s hand off and took chunks out of a man’s leg. There was so much blood in my mouth that I gagged on it. In exchange, they beat me with staffs until I nearly died. I do not remember the trip to Morrowind or what happened to my pig-skin bag and notes.

I do remember when I woke up. I remember a wagon swaying and bumping on every stone and pothole, and through the bars I saw soft-skin buildings rising into the sky. When I raised my head, I saw that I lay in the back of a wooden wagon with barred windows, which was drawn by two horses. My head lay in the lap of a golden-furred Khajiit with only one ear. She wore many bandages, stained rust-red with her blood.

“Can you hear us?” she said in my tongue.

“Yes,” I said.

“Then listen closely,” she said. “We are entering the city of Vivar, which is on the coast of Morrowind.”

“Gods!” I said, and puffed up my throat. “Morrowind!”

“We are sorry to tell you this. We wish we did not have to. But we must tell you or you won’t be ready. These slavers speak of selling us to Vvardenfell.”

“And what is that?”

“An island, part of Morrowind. It is just across the Inner Sea. Once you are sold there, it is almost impossible to get back. There are terrible diseases there, and the slaves are treated worse than dogs. It is a terrible place.”

“I have been told that much.” I squinted at her. My eyes were still bleary. “Who are you, that you care for a stranger?”

“Our name is Moon-under-Stars,” she said, “and what we are doing is the creed of my tribe. Do not trust the hairless ones, with one exception: you can trust the lizards from the Black Marsh. They are your allies.”

“My father taught me the same for your people,” I said.

“Then we are friends,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. We pressed our palms together and were sisters.

Vivar is a coastal town, and many Dunmer live there. There are great ships in the harbor. You can smell the wind off of the ocean and the stink of fish, and hear the men shout and ring bells and blow whistles. There is a marketplace full of colorful tents and stands where soft-skins sell bright fruits and fresh fish, and where some of them play music and perform acrobatics for coins. If I were free I would have liked to walk on the docks to see these strange things, even if they are of soft-skins.

Those who had captured us took us to a market in a big building with locked doors and no windows. Many guards watched the doors. For a long time I thought it was to keep slaves under control. Later I would find out that slavery was outlawed in all of Tamriel, but the emperor was weak and did not demand anything of the Dunmer because he was worried how they might feel. This was a good lesson: soft-skins are weak-willed, and will always work for each other first.

I was so weak at this time that they could not sell me right away. They left Moon-under-Stars with me because she had resisted when they took her, so she was very hurt too. They gave us medicine and let us sleep and eat. While we rested and became well, Moon-under-Stars taught me a little of the Dunmer and Imperial tongues. It was very hard. My people’s mouths are made to hiss and click and grunt, and our words flow seamlessly, like a river. There are stops and starts in soft-skin tongues. At first I grew tired of the teaching. I told Moon-under-Stars that I did not care. I did not like the soft-skins and their language; it was ugly, like the barking of bullfrogs.

“They are all devils, to be sure,” she said, “but it is wise to know what a devil says. If he thinks you do not understand him, he will tell you everything.”

This is wisdom.

Before I was completely better, they took her and sold her. This is when I decided that I should not fight yet. I would wait and I would watch and I would learn all about the soft-skins so I would never fall prey to them again. After I learned their ways I would find where they sold Moon-under-Stars and I would set her free.

 


	3. Chapter 3

This was the time I thanked the gods for my ugly face. I was so ugly that the slavers did not check my gender. They sold many of my marsh-sisters into the unspeakable trade. As for me, they said, “This one should go to the field.”

When my bones mended and I could walk, they brought me into a great tent beside the slave-house, and led me upon a stage. There were many soft-skins there in the crowd, and armed guards everywhere. Although I was very gentle, they muzzled me and bound my wrists together. I was bought for five gold pieces by a kind of soft-skin I had never seen before. He had a very red face, and his eyes were blue and bloodshot. There was a lot of yellow hair on his face. He was very tall and thick of muscle, like an ox, and his hands were very broad. Later I would learn that he was a soft-skin called a “Nord.”

I was taken in a horse cart with three other slaves. These slaves were all Dunmer. I laughed in their faces and I asked them how they liked their slavery. This made the youngest one cry. He was fifteen years old and silly like a hatchling. I told him so.

I thought I was to go to Vvardenfell, where I would be worked to death and given the blight. But this was not so. The Nord took us to a saltrice plantation on the coast of Morrowind, which he owned. It was out of the way, and the laws of the country were not followed there. There were bandits in the woods, and other slave plantations nearby.

The Nord lived in a manor house with his eight servants: a butler, five foremen, and two maids. The foremen were the Nord’s brothers and cousins, and the maids were the wives of the foremen. Outside the manor house were three longhouses which had beds the like I had never seen. In the Marsh, we sleep in nests made with the down of birds and the pelts of animals, and the rich have bedrolls made of woven sheets. In the slave-house, I slept on a sheet and a mound of straw. But here, there was something called “bunk beds:” there were thick pads on wooden frames, and there were two beds to each frame. Because I was new and considered an animal, the other slaves made me use the broken one at the very end of the room. No one would sleep near me. I liked this fine.

I was the only Person of the Root in the building. There were no Khajiit either. I was all by myself. Later I found out that word had spread in the city that I was a killer, and the Nord bought me very cheaply. The other slaves he had bought for fifty to seventy gold pieces apiece. This is when I began to learn about the thing they call “money.” Our people rarely use money deep in the Marsh. Only the cities on the border and the coasts use money; the towns deep within the Marsh use trade.

I learned about money, and how it was better than having goods, and easier to carry, too. I learned to do sums. When the slaves gambled at the end of the day, I would watch and listen and learn. I learned to add and subtract. I learned that if I earned enough money and the Nord was willing, I could buy my freedom. But the Nord was not willing and I was bad at gambling, and I never earned a single coin.

But not all was bad. Within a year I could speak the devils’ language in a way that was well understood.

I worked very hard on the saltrice and I repeated all of my books to myself. The people in the field said, “There goes that Argonian. She is crazy.”

My Nord master did not think about me much. He never spoke to me, but he treated me kindly. This is the secret: he thought of me as an animal, and he treated animals very well. His horses lived in fine stalls and were brushed twice a day. His hunting dogs lived in kennels with clean straw for their beds, and were fed fresh meat and table scraps. Even the Guars lived in clean stables and were fed fresh vegetables from the garden behind the manor house, and Guars are the ugliest and most useless lizards the world has ever known.

As for his slaves, they slept in broken beds and leaking houses, and when the Nord came out into the fields, he would scream at them and beat them with a stick. He treated the women like whores, and when they were pregnant he would curse at them and say, “There is no room for babies here,” and sell them in the city. So the women came and went a great deal, and I never saw a soft-skin’s hatchling. I was sad for this, because I was very curious. I wanted to know what kinds of eggs they laid, or if they gave birth to live young like pigs do.

If I saw the Nord coming, I would keep my head down, and I would crouch and work very fast—planting the seeds, or picking the weeds, or harvesting, it did not matter. When I saw him I would make a sound like his dogs, or speak in my mother tongue, and press my head under his hand like they did. This pleased him a great deal. Sometimes he gave me treats, and laughed and called me a big dog-lizard. It was a very funny game for him. The other slaves were very angry. They did not speak to me, and they called me “the Pet.”

I did not care. I laughed in their faces. I said, “I am not beaten and you are.”

So everyone hated me and conspired against me, but I gave the Nord an act. I hunched to make myself look smaller, and cocked my head and looked like I was deep in thought whenever he talked to me. I rarely spoke in his presence, and when I did it was in single words, as though I were a fool. So he liked me very much because he thought I was stupid. It was a fun thing to trick him. I think he thought the slaves told him lies because they were jealous of how I was treated, and this made him mistreat them more. Sometimes I would do crazy things just so they would report me and be beaten for their trouble. One time I stood on the top of the slave house with a bucket on my head and sang a folk song of my people. When the Nord came to see, I was already working in the field. He thought all of the slaves were mad and had them beaten.

I often thought about running away, but it was an impossible thing. The first problem was that the Nord had horses and hunting dogs. I could have bested him if this were the only concern, but the greatest problem was this: I wore bracers on my legs. They were very heavy, and when I wore them I dragged my feet, for it was like wearing a hundred stones on each leg. When we worked in the fields the Nord would only take one of them off. On the slaves he trusted, he took the bracers off. So I thought that if I were the Pet long enough, he would take them off. Then I would leave for the Marshes again, because I had enough of the soft-skins and I was homesick.

But this was not to be so.

One day a strange man came to the plantation. He was an Imperial with a lined face who wore a black coat with a hood. He walked on the road that wound between the fields, looking from side to side and examining all the slaves. When he came to the Plantation, he knocked and said, “Good day, sir. I am Messenger Vidor Troccius, in the Empire’s service.”

The Nord was furious. He said, “Get out of here, or I will stave your head in.”

“Be calm. I have no interest in charging you for slavery,” said the Messenger. “Besides, it would not be wise to raise your hand against me. Attacking a servant of the Empire is punishable by hard labor for forty years.”

“No one would know,” said the Nord, and he drew out a great club, which he kept beside his door.

The Messenger turned his cloak aside. There was a glint of armor, a sword, and a dagger. Around his neck there was a magnificent amulet with a ruby in it, which had been bewitched and glowed with an unearthly light. I could see this because I was taking a drink of water from the well near the house.

The Nord was very quiet for a minute. Then he set his club down, and he asked, “Why are you here?”

“I am taking a census,” said the Messenger. “That is all. May I see your slaves?”

The Nord was very uneasy, but he was afraid that the Messenger might be a powerful man because of his dress. So he said, “Go, see the slaves. But don’t let me catch you setting them free or I won’t show you mercy.”

“Very well,” said the Messenger, who bowed.

The Messenger saw me taking a drink at the well, so he walked to me first.

“Hail,” he said.

I felt uneasy at once. He was very heavy. I do not mean to say that he was fat, because he was not. It was like his soul was heavier than his body, and came out through his eyes. It is the only way I can explain him.

I tried to hate him like I hated all of the soft-skins, especially because he was not going to set me free. But I could not. It is hard to explain, but he was beyond my anger. Perhaps he was a good soft-skin, or a god.

He took a scroll from his bag and asked me if I was born in Argonia.

“Yes,” I said. (For this is what the soft-skins call the Black Marshes.)

He asked when I was born.

I said in the common tongue, “I was born in the Third era on the nineteenth of Frostfall under the sign of the Tower in the year 480.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Who are your parents?”

I thought this was a very strange question. “My mother has had many husbands,” I said.

“And what is her name? Where does she live?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know where she lives…?”

“I do not know anything about her.”

“Very well.” He wrote something down. “Now give me your hands.”

He took my hands and looked at them, and then he said a magic spell. The skin of my palms tingled. He looked thoughtful.

“Thank you,” he said. He wrote some notes on his scroll, and he left for the fields.

When I looked up, I saw the Nord. He stared at me, and his face was very red. He said, “You can talk?”

I said, “Yes.”

“Trick me, will you?” he said.

So he took his walking staff and he beat me all the way to the field. From that day on I was no longer a pet.

 

&&&&&&&

 

After this, life was bad for me. The slaves did not like me and they tried to get me in trouble all of the time. Now the Nord wanted to believe them, even if he knew it was false. He beat me a great deal. He hated it when I spoke. So I never spoke and I kept low, and if I could, I worked in the furthest field. Sometimes I slept beside the far field beneath a tree and ate frogs and grasshoppers and rabbits, like I had when I was a hatchling. I thought of running, but with the bracers, I could not get far before the Nord would find me. And he would find me, because he had the hunting dogs and the fine horses.

This is when the dreams started.

At first I dreamed that a soft-skin was sitting by my bed. I could not open my eyes, and I could only tell it was a soft-skin because of its smell. I thought this soft-skin might be one of the slaves. But when I woke up I could see that the dust by my bed was undisturbed. If I slept outside, this was very strange, because no slave cared for me enough to walk so far from the house in the cold night. The plants by my side were never crushed, nor was the dew disturbed.

I thought it might be a ghost. In my land the ghosts are not always good, and I did not know the magic that would keep them away.

Then the dream changed and became very strange.

I stood in cold water up to my neck. There was gray water everywhere around me, and thick fog. All of a sudden, I felt a terror as I had not felt since I was very small—like an angry wild sow was looking at me in the darkness, waiting for me to turn my back. I looked up. There was a spit of land jutting through the fog, and standing there on the rock was a man wrapped in dark red cloth from head to toe, like the Dark Elves wrap their dead. He wore a blood-red cape stitched with gold thread and hung with gold tags, and a gold mask in the shape of a soft-skin’s face.

For many minutes, I looked at the face of this gold-mask-man, and I felt the terror in my belly. It was worse than when I was a child, for I could not move, and the water stole the warmth away from me. My heart was slowing down. I was dying.

Then I knew that there was a soft-skin behind me, somehow, and a warm hand touched the back of my head and spoke another language. I woke panting. I was lying in the cold field beside my sickle. I got up and started a fire, and warmed myself, and marveled at the dream. From then on, I slept with a fire and a blanket. But this did not help me. The dreams continued.

If I had been a shaman, perhaps I could have used spells to open my mouth. In dreams this bound mouth is a bad sign. It means that the dreamer is under the spell of an evil spirit, who does not want the dreamer to utter spells of protection. So I went to the slaves I hated and I said, “Who among you is a shaman?”

They laughed at me and threw dirt in my face. Only one, an old woman, asked, “Why do you ask?”

I said, “There is a bad ghost in my dreams, and I must know the spells to make him go away.”

She began to laugh. “You stupid Argonian,” she said, “do you know what you have? You have soul sickness. The only people who have such dreams are the stupid and the weak.”

I felt like a hatchling again, faced with a wall of words that I did not know.

Once the other slaves knew I had a soul sickness, they laughed at me, too.

“I knew it,” said the Dark Elf boy I had mocked long ago. “I knew you were just a stupid Argonian.”

A little fire started in my heart. This is the first time a man’s words have ever hurt me.

Here is the worst problem: if a woman gives of her flesh to a child, the man gives the spirit. So the man who gave me a part of his spirit must have been very weak. This was a terrible thing! I could use a poultice to soothe the aches of my body, but I could not put a salve on my spirit. So I went to the two maids in the grand manor.

“What are you doing here?” they asked.

“I ask for a Shaman’s book, that I might cure my soul sickness,” I said.

“Stupid Argonian!” they said. “Books are worth a king’s ransom! Do you think we’d waste money on you?” And they took a broom and hit me with it until I departed.

So the little fire in my heart grew a little bigger.

So I went to the foremen, each one in succession. I said, “I would like a Shaman’s book, that I might cure my soul sickness.”

“You stupid beast!” they said. “You are not worth a gold piece. You probably can’t even read. You would pawn the book and buy Skooma and booze!” So they whipped me with their belts and I ran away.

Each time, the fire in my heart grew a little hotter.

So I tried to ignore the dreams, and in desperation made up my own spells, which did not work. The dreams continued; they were the same dream, over and over. But at last, in one dream I stared at Gold-Face, and I fought to open my mouth to speak. I would ask why this ghost haunted me and what spells would give him peace.

Then he raised his arm to me.

I had such terror in my heart. I cannot tell you the depth or breadth of it. It is foolish to be afraid of a raised hand. But I will tell you this: in the Marsh, if someone points at you, they can be killed for casting a spell. So I thought he was casting a spell on me.

In every dream after this, his arms were stretched out to me. Sometimes he pointed at me, and sometimes he held out his hands like he would help me out of the water. In each dream, I stood closer and closer to him. Soon my shoulders were out of the water, and then my breast, and then my waist. I did not want this. I could see more detail of him. He was very real. The cloth draped over his arms swung in a breeze, and I could see the stitches in the embroidery. There were strange letters in the mask, and little rubies sewn in his cloak.

In the last dream, I dreamed that I was so close, that the water only covered my feet. If the man on the rock had leaned forward, he could have touched me. I was so frightened that my heart beat like a drum and I could have no peace. Finally, because I was desperate, I went to the Nord himself.

“I am in the sway of a bad spirit,” I told him—quickly, because he had grabbed his cudgel. “I must have a Shaman’s book, that I can cure my soul sickness.”

But the Nord said nothing. He took his cudgel and he beat me across the shoulders, and cuffed me. The fire in my heart grew higher.

After that, I dared not sleep. Every day and every night was a nightmare. At night, I could only doze lightly, and I dared not sleep long. I would no longer sleep out in the field; I only slept in the longhouses, and I kept the fire stoked throughout the night to ward off the shadows. To wake myself before I fell asleep, I would hold a handful of stones over an old plate. When I fell asleep, my fingers would relax, and the stones would clatter on the plate. Then I would wake up before I could dream. So I became very tired and clumsy.

One day during this terrible time, I was digging a drainage ditch for the Nord, for it had been raining hard and there was danger of the field flooding too early. I was using a good, heavy shovel and my hands were shaking, and I longed for sleep. The Nord came bellowing from the manor house with his cudgel, and we all bent our heads. I could smell the liquor on his breath from a distance. He came over and beat the fellow on my right. Then he turned to me and struck me with the flat of his hand. The fire in my heart blew up high and hot. How was this a fair thing, that I was working in the mud and the rain for his benefit, and he showed no gratefulness for it?

I said, “If you hit me one more time, I will knock your head off.”

“I would like to see you try, scaly,” he said.

The fire roared up in my heart, then ran from my heart into my arms and my head. I gripped the shovel hard with both hands, and I swung it with all my strength, which was far greater than I thought it should be, for I struck him so hard in the chin that I tore his head half off. He fell onto his back, and blood went all over the mud until it was slick and dark like spilled oil, and his body twitched. Around me, the slaves were screaming. I felt a great slackness in my body, and a rush of lightness, as I had when I had spilled the last of my mother’s blood. When I looked up, I saw the foremen coming from around the field. They were raising their cudgels.

I turned to look at the slaves. Even though they hated me, I thought they would love freedom more, and take the moment to fight for themselves. But they were cowards. They pointed at me, and they said, “The crazy monster killed him! The crazy monster has killed the master!”

I was filled with a cold hatred, and I knew those Nords would kill me and that I could not run with the bracers on. So I raised my shovel and used all my strength. The first Nord who raised his hand to me received my shovel in his ribs. I heard them snap like wood, and blood came out of his nose and mouth. He fell screaming to the ground and could not get up. But I did not trust him, even on his back, so I used my shovel to cut his throat. Then, I walked toward the Nords and opened my mouth wide so they could see my teeth shine.

“I have killed two men,” I said. “I am Mud-on-Her-Face; I have no master. Bring me a key and free me of these chains, or I will kill you and your wives and dogs, too.”

The foremen laughed, but it was nervous laughter, and I could smell fear on them. There were four of them, and there were over twenty slaves huddled on the other side of the field. Imagine this silly thing! There were many against me that day. If they had worked together they would have killed me in a minute’s time. I have been in many fights since, and I have seen this funny thing many times now. How strange it is that one man can hold many at bay, and only because he is fearless!

But one of the Nords was red in the face. He was the brother closest to the master. Suddenly he threw his cudgel aside and tackled me. The other Nords followed. Now, this was a danger. Nords are very strong men, and these men worked hard like slaves. This man had a punch that made my ears ring. But I knew that if I did not fight for my life, I would not see another day.

This man was the strongest man, and he took my neck and tried to break it. But I ripped his hand to pieces with my sharp teeth, and then I tore at his arm and ripped the flesh brutally. The Nords beat me with cudgels and broke my arm, but I lashed my tail like a whip to keep them away, and clawed with my hind feet. This was my thought: if I could, I would kill one man at a time.

I was so busy killing the Nords that I did not see the stranger in black rushing over the field toward us until the last moment. As if in a dream, I saw the man over the Nord’s shoulder. His feet did not touch the ground; rather, the wind carried them. The amulet around his neck was a bright star, and he was uttering great spells. The air was thick with magic. His cloak flared up around him like two black wings.

A great wind struck us. I was thrown off of my feet. So were the Nords, who fell into the mud. We all crawled to our feet. I was light-headed from pain, my ears rung, I could barely see for the blood in my eyes, and my arm hung crooked and bone grated on bone, but I did not care. I would kill every man. I saw the Nord I had been killing stumbling to his feet. His arm and legs were ripped to pieces and his face was white as chalk. I knew the look of death, I knew the blood was leaving his body and he would die! I laughed, even though I had little breath for it.

But the man in black robes burst through the circle of fallen Nords. His eyes were intent like a hungry dog’s. I recognized his face: he was the Messenger who had asked me strange questions months before. He grabbed me by the throat and suddenly, my muscles were frozen and I could not move.

“Mud-on-Her Face,” he said, “You are under arrest for murder.” He turned and pointed at the Nord I had ravaged, and he said a mighty word. Suddenly, the Nord’s flesh was whole again.

How I wished to whirl onto the Messenger and tear his head off!

The color returned to the Nord’s face; his eyes flashed.

“This is my slave!” he said. “Let it go so I can kill it!” He rushed toward us, but the Messenger raised his hand and the Nord froze as still as a statue. Only his eyes could move, and his lips quivered a little.

“Do not worry,” said the Messenger. “I have come to have her hanged. You see, she killed two men before she was sold in Vivar; your two friends here were only two more. I am surprised she did not kill more of you. Such a killer is dangerous to every man in Tamriel, and an inquest is necessary.” He threw five gold pieces in the mud at the Nord’s feet. “This is the Empire’s matter now.”

And then he uttered a word, and there was a flash of light. For a second, I thought I saw the imprint of Gold-Mask’s face on my eyelids, so close that his face nearly touched mine; and the terror was so great that this, combined with my pain and weariness, caused me to collapse completely.


	4. Chapter 4

I do not remember much after this. I think I slept a long time, and I dreamed a great deal. I do not remember most of the dreams, only that I was very afraid. The only dream I remember is this:

The Gold Mask Man held my arm. We were in a great hall at a wedding party, with many torches on the walls and garlands hung from the doors and windows. There were tables laid out with platters of food—pigs and Kwama eggs and great cornucopias of fruit. Every thing was bright with color and light, but it was a bad light, a steady dull orange light like a fire that did not flicker. The windows were bricked in, and the air was heavy like a long-closed room. I could almost see the air, it was so thick.

I do not know how I knew this was a wedding, for I had never seen one before.

Our guests were dead Dunmer; they were mummies wrapped in sheets and skeletons bound with rope and skinless monsters without eyes. Someone had posed them like they were dolls, with their hands around goblets and their heads turned to look at the center aisle. We walked between the dead and the stillness was a perfect thing. The Gold Mask Man nodded to them and held out his arm to them. I heard his lips move and knew he spoke, but no words came out. Instead, there was a whispering sound of many voices. I turned to speak because I would say, “Why are you doing this?” But I could not breathe, and I woke up.

When I woke up, I tried to move my arms, but I was bound with ropes, and I could not see because there was a dark cloth around my eyes. I heard the man called Vidor Troccius say, “How long has she slept? This is not good, I am sure.”

“Three days,” said another man. “But if you are right and she is violent, then I see no problem with a few days more. I will keep a sleeping spell on her until we arrive at the Mage’s Guild.”

I opened my mouth and said, “Do not do this thing,” and I was about to tell them that I had the soul sickness and there was a bad spirit in my dreams, and that it had taken me in my sleep. But when I spoke, this made them so frightened that I heard four healers in the room start saying spells at once. I fell asleep so fast that I did not have time to feel anger or surprise. When I woke up at last, I was angry; but these days, knowing what I do, I think this is very funny.

This time, I had another dream. I dreamed that I walked through a wasteland, and that the Gold Mask Man was everywhere, although I could not see him. The earth was cracked from drought, the sky was red, and the wind was very dry and hot. I could not see very far ahead of me, for there was a dust storm. I smelled sulfur and something like rotten eggs. The rocks were cracked and black and reared up over the ground like great termite towers. All of the plants were dead; the brush was thorny and tangled, and all branches and leaves had been stripped away by fire and wind. I felt very heavy, as though I had been bound in a hundred chains.

The strange thing was that although the wind rattled the branches, and I saw rocks fall and thorns scrape against stone, I heard no sound.

Then I heard a woman’s voice. But it was a very strange voice, for it was as though she spoke without language, and that she spoke with many voices at once. I remember that the woman seemed to be all around me, as though I wore her like armor. For the first time, I felt safe from Gold Mask Man.

She said, “They will take you from the Imperial City’s prison—first by carriage, and then by boat. You will travel through the east to Morrowind and the coast of Vvardenfell. Fear not, for I am watchful.”

At that moment I knew everything, but then I fell into a dreamless sleep and forgot. This is the way of gods. They are afraid that mortals should know too much.

 

&&&&&&&

 

When I woke again, I was in a little stone room only as long as I am tall. It had a very high ceiling, and a little barred window, through which I could see gray morning light. There was a rusty iron door, which I could tell had been long shut. They had polished and oiled the hinges, and replaced one. They had nailed a board of new wood against the bars, to block my view of the outside; the wood was still green and smelled of the forest. But this was the only fresh smell, for beneath the door crept the stink of sickness, decay, mold, and rats. Outside, I heard the rustle of clothing and a man cough, and the faraway wheezing of someone with a lung sickness.

When I sat up, I saw that I had manacles on my wrists and bracers on my ankles, and that there was a chain that connected them in the middle and latched onto the wall. I could stand up straight, but I could not spread my arms or walk well, and I could not move further than three steps from my bed.

I thought: “So here is where I will stand trial for the killing of those Nords.” I also thought, “I am not sorry,” and I knew that the minute I had the chance, I would sneak out, and I would kill anyone who tried to stop me. Then I would go home.

But soon I realized that something was odd. My room was swept and smelled of soap. There were places in the rough stone where someone had tried to remove dark stains. My bed was no slave’s pad; it was a tick stuffed with feathers. I had down pillows, and two blankets woven by a master’s hand. By my side was a stool, which smelled of soft-skin. It was a recent smell.

The greatest strangeness was this: that of all the wounds I had received in the Nord’s field, I was healed of all of them. All I suffered was the headache of one who has slept too much.

I sat up on my bed and I said loudly, “This is a funny thing, to let a murderer live, and to heal her wounds and give her a king’s bed.”

There was a muttering. A slat in the door was opened. I saw a soft-skin’s surprised eyes.

“If you are not going to kill me, I want to go,” I said. “I must return to the Black Marsh, and then I must find Moon-under-Stars.”

The little slat was slammed shut. I heard muffled voices. A man said, “Go, alert the healer! Tell General Troccius!”

I knew a little about the military, since the Dark Elves are fond of taking slaves of high repute and spoke much about it in the slave house. So I was very surprised to hear this. Was Troccius a slave, that he went taking the census like a common scribe?

Soon I heard men talking in whispers outside my door, and the tramp of boots. My door swung open. Troccius stood in the doorway in his long black cape. There was dew on his boots and the tail of his cape. Behind him, I saw a cell where a Dark Elf pressed his face against the bars. The Dark Elf had no bed at all, just a heap of straw. This pleased me very much.

“Ah! Mud-on-Her-Face,” Troccius said. “I am glad to see that you are well.”

“What purpose do you have, healing a criminal, and giving her a feather bed?” I asked.

He smiled a little. I know how to read soft-skin faces better now, so I know it was because he was surprised. “No one can say you are not honest,” he said. “My friend, you will be glad to know that the Emperor has seen fit to pardon you.”

“This makes no sense to me,” I said. “What knowledge should an Emperor have of a slave? And if he knew I was a slave in Morrowind, and left me in chains, then he is a hypocrite, and I spit in his face.”

The guards grew very quiet, and I saw them sweat. This also gave me great happiness.

“I would recommend that you not insult the Emperor’s gifts,” said Troccius in a cold voice. “Besides, he has righted that wrong, hasn’t he?”

“My people and the Khajiit, they go in and out of the doors of the slave house,” I said. “They are snared like rabbits and sold into the unspeakable trade every day. Why has he chosen to save only one?”

“What he does and does not is no concern of yours,” said Troccius. “He is the Emperor; his whim is the law. There are reasons he does not shut down the slave houses and round up the slavers, but that is not for discussion. The case is this. He will forgive you of all of your crimes, and you will not go to the chopping block. But only under this condition.”

“You are sending me to Vvardenfell,” I said.

The soldiers stood very still now. One turned very white. I know now, from the insignia they wore, that they were the emperor’s personal guard. So they knew all his secrets.

“How did you know that?” said Troccius. His voice was quiet. His face had paled like the belly of a dead fish.

“I was told by a woman with the voice of a god,” I said. “I do not want to go to Vvardenfell. I would rather die.”

Troccius turned; he saw the Dark Elf in his cell, with his face pressed against the bars, and his mouth open. Then Troccius pointed at him. One of the guards raised his sword. The Dark Elf screamed and ran against the far wall, but they opened up the door and went in and stabbed him in the throat and heart. His blood ran out into the hall.

“Is anyone else within earshot?” asked Troccius. “Go, and see.”

The soldiers drew their swords and went down the hall on either side. I heard two people cry out, and then silence. As for Troccius, he closed the door behind him. He stood very close to me, for the cell was very small. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword.

I would have laughed, because I was chained, and there was no need for fear on his part; but I could not smile, because now I was very sorry that I had shown them my knowledge of their language. Maybe they would have spoken frankly if they thought I could not understand them.

“This is a strange business,” I said.

“Don’t say a word of that to anyone,” he said. “If you have any more dreams, you should keep them to yourself. As for slavery, you are not to be sold. What the Emperor wants is for you to go to Vvardenfell for a short time.”

“How short?”

“It will be made obvious to you by contacts on the island, who we will introduce to you,” he said, very slowly. “When you are finished with your business, you may return to the mainland, and do whatever you like.”

“I don’t like this business,” I said. “How will I know I am finished? What am I to do?”

“You are to wander, and do as you please, and keep contact with the Emperor’s agents,” he said. “You are to do as you are told, to a… certain degree.”

I snapped my teeth together. “I will go home.”

“We have contacted a sorcerer of great strength,” he said. “You have already been bewitched. When you land on Vvardenfell, the charm on you will come alive. You will not be able to leave the island. If you step onto a boat, and that boat takes you a hundred feet from the shore, you will be gripped by an excruciating pain. You will not be able to walk, to sleep, or find any kind of comfort; you will only find relief once you return to the island.”

“This is a foul thing,” I said, and showed my teeth.

“It is better than being killed,” he said. “You will have the rest of your life to yourself; the Emperor has decreed it. His will is law. No man will be able to enslave you upon pain of death.”

“Is the Emperor my friend? Does he walk with me and guard me with his sword?” I said. “I have no need for swordless laws or swordless men; my hand is sufficient. Let any man try to enslave me, and law or not, I will kill them myself. When I go free I will find the Nords and I will burn down their house with them inside, and I will find the slave-house in Vivar and kill every man in it.”

“Gods,” said Troccius. “Then this is a terrible thing we are doing; but it can’t be helped. You will be taught how to fight a little by our masters here in the Imperial City; you will be taught how to use a little healing magic; and then we will set you on the island. When you are free, you will know it. Surely it shall not take longer than a year or two. Hopefully it will temper your wickedness.”

I laughed in his face, and he left. He had a stricken face and I saw that he did not like me. This is a funny thing. Only a man who has everything—the law, and money, and a good life—can despise a man who has nothing and no way to procure what he wants and needs except by force. What wickedness is there in justice? And if a man does not receive justice from the hand of law, should he not seek it himself?

 

&&&&&&&

 

That night I was afraid to sleep, because I thought that I was to be married to the bad spirit, and I did not want to dream of the wedding night. So I went to the door and shouted. I said, “I need a plate and some pebbles.”

The guard said through the door, “What use have you for that?”

“I have the soul sickness,” I said. “If I sleep, the bad spirit will take me. I must wake myself up.”

But they laughed at me and said, “You have slept a great deal already, and you haven’t been taken yet. We will not get a plate for you! What is this nonsense?”

So I kept myself awake into the dark hours of the night by several means. I shook my chains. I sang the songs of my people very loudly. I said all of my books to myself. The guards outside groaned and cursed at me. Sometimes they opened the slat and they said, “Be quiet!”

I said, “Bring me a plate and some pebbles!”

By the fourth watch they brought me a plate and some pebbles. I slept a little, and it was fine. I had no bad dreams. But the Gold Mask Man waited at my door. I know; I saw him through the slat.

The next morning, Troccius came to my cell and shut the door behind him. He said, “What is this I hear about plates and pebbles?”

“I have the soul sickness,” I said. “There is a Gold Mask Man who is trying to cast a curse on me.” Then I told him about my dreams.

Troccius set his mouth in the way that humans do when they are thinking.

I said, “Bring me a book on soul sickness or a shaman with knowledge.”

Troccius said, “You were asleep for a week and three days. You appear of hale mind.”

“I told you that I wed the Gold Mask Man,” I said. “What do you think will happen next? I tell you, I will not give him any more of me. Give me a book or a shaman.”

“I will go to the archmages today and ask on your behalf,” he said. “Wait for me. In the meantime, you will see a master who will teach you the arts you need to survive on Vvardenfell.”

 

&&&&&&&

 

My new life was a very strange one.

They moved me to a different cell. It was bigger, and in its own corridor, which was locked and guarded by three men. No other prisoners were kept there. Troccius said, “It was a mistake to keep her with the other prisoners. We cannot hide her forever, but we must do our best to.”

“Why?” I said. “I never hid before.”

“Don’t ask questions,” he said.

“This is strange business,” I told him.

Every morning, I was given a simple breakfast of ham or eggs with fruit and well-water. Then I was taken in chains to my teachers by several guards. The guards took me by different routes every time. They covered cells with blankets so the prisoners could not see me, covered my face so I could not be seen, bound my body so my gender could not be told, and bound my mouth so I could not talk.

They would take me to a large circular room with sawdust on the floor, torches on the walls, and a big window on the ceiling. They would cover the doors with charms that sound could not escape, and then the room was surrounded by twelve Imperial guards. They took the chains and bindings off of my body. Then I would learn, for this room was where the tutors came to see me.

My first tutor taught me the fine arts of the Imperial language. He also taught me Dunmeri, the language of the Dark Elves, and how to read, write, and speak it. He was a little old Dunmer with arms like sticks, and he shook all the time. I could have killed him even with the chains on my arms, and I would have liked to, but I will not lie: I liked the learning of the language. By knowing their tongue, I could listen at their doorsteps. I would find their secrets and use them against them. It pleased me very much. They had a very ugly language, even uglier than the Imperial tongue. It rattles and hisses and slurs, and uses the front of the lips, which is very hard for me.

When I had learned from the tutor for three days, I told him, “Tell me what they will do to me.”

“I do not know,” he said. “And if I did know, they would not let me tell you.”

My second tutor was a small soft-skin who they call a “Breton.” They are very thin and pale and dark-haired. When they stand next to Imperial soft-skins, they look like children. She tried to teach me the magic of healing. But I was very bad at it. She said, “This one is no good with magic. She does not have the affinity.”

I said that I did not mind, because I knew of good herbs for salves and potions for all manners of illness.

Troccius said, “That is not good enough. If she breaks her leg in the wilds, no one will find her, and she will die.”

“That is not so,” I said. “First, I will set my leg. Then I will make a brace of a strong stick or a bone and bandages from cloth, or hide, or fibrous leaves of the…”

“You will die,” he said. “Now practice the words.”

I had not hated Troccius in the beginning, but now I hated him, for he was like a father, and I was past the age for fathers.

So the Breton mage gave me many foul potions to drink, which hurt my belly, but did nothing else.

Later, three men came to see us. When they saw me, they hated me, for they were Dark Elves. They did not greet us at first, because they were surprised. Because they did not like me, I smiled and said terrible words in my own language.

One wizard said, “I do not like her teeth.”

Another said, “Should she not be bound?”

The Breton said, “Archmages, you have been chosen because you are the best in your art. But we have run a risk employing you, as we know that your race has no love for the Argonians. If we find that you have mishandled this ceremony, you will be killed.”

This was a marvel to me.

So the archmages bowed their heads and made a great ceremony for me. They drew signs in the dust and lit many candles, then gave me more potions to drink, and wrote inscriptions on my body in inks of many colors. They bid me to lie down and to stand up and to stretch my limbs in different ways, and chanted great words, and burned strange fires and incense. They ground precious stones and strange plants, and mingled them with odd powders that I had never seen, then bid me eat it. It was bad stuff.

After that, a strange fire woke in my belly, which went into my arms and legs. Then when I said the magic words, I could heal bones and wounds. But it is still a very hard business and I do not like it. It gives me a bad headache and makes me very tired.

Later, the Breton mage gave me a strange necklace made of silver and emeralds. It made the fire in my belly stronger. She said, “Do not lose this. It is worth more than ten houses.”

“Why would they give this to me?” I said.

“I do not know,” she said. “But if I say a word about you outside this room, they are authorized to kill me.”

My final teacher was a Person of the Root. He had a crown of horns and fine feathers. He was older than I was, but very strong, with arms like cords, and had many scars and tattoos. He was to teach me the spear, which our people use best of all peoples. I did not think I would be happy to see any person, even one of my own people. If I had been young I would have hated him because he looked like the Hunters from my tribe. But I was very happy to see him. I spoke to him in my tongue, which was old and strange to me now, because I had not used it with another Person for a year.

I said, “Are you a slave, too?”

He said with a snort, “Do I look like a slave? No! I am a Master from the Fighter’s Guild.”

His name was Scratches-behind-Ear, because when he thought he would scratch at his feathers. He said he was a “mercenary,” a sword who fights for money.

This was my favorite part of the day. It was good to speak the right language, and to use the traditional tools of my people. I learned how to stand, which is the most important part. He said, “Your stance is your foundation.” I was taught how to dodge, to use the killing thrust and the swipe. I learned to use my strength and speed and head. It was good to stab the training dummy; I thought of the Nord and it made my strikes strong. Scratches-behind-Ear told me I was good, and that I would be fine in the wilderness, for most bandits are not very good at fighting and have poor gear. They find their strength in groups.

“There are bandits there?” I said.

“Many,” he said. “Vvardenfell is full of lawless country.”

“So I am to kill bandits.”

“Perhaps.”

Then I asked him, “Do you know why they keep me here?”

He said, “I do not know. But they pay me well, and they have warned me: if I say a word about you outside this room, they will kill me.”

Then I would be brought back to my cell, and I would be given clean water to drink, and fresh fruit and the haunches of rabbits and Kwama eggs. My evening was spent with books, which they gave me about Vvardenfell and Morrowind, as well as good maps. I said the words to myself in my dreams, which were good, for I had been given a potion to drink every night and a bewitched bracelet, which would keep the Gold Mask Man away.

But the more I thought, the more confusion I had. A god and an emperor wanted me. But they were going to throw me onto an island, and leave me there alone, where I might die. Troccius said, “If you want to be alone on Vvardenfell, you may. No chains will bind you. You must only speak to a few people, whose identities will be made known to you.” This is a strange thing. If they would send me on a mission, then I would like it much better, for there would be rules.

Instead, they said, “You will be free there!”

But what sense is there in that? I was not free. I was still a man’s slave. I could not go home. I could not look for Moon-under-Stars or the Traveling Salesman. I had to live on an island that is full of blight storms, where the disease is very bad, even for the Dunmer.

“Tell me what the emperor’s purpose is,” I told Troccius.

“You will see soon enough,” he said.

I wish now that I had been wise, and that I had not loved the learning so much. I wish I had remembered the lesson that all soft-skins work for each other first. I tell you, I am too easily drunk on knowledge. If I had not loved knowledge, I would have thought about escape. I could have escaped, if I wanted to, but I never tried. My belly and my head was full, I was warm, and I had no bad dreams anymore. I did not worry enough about why an emperor and a god and a general should pay such attention to a slave. Fool! Fool! Sometimes happiness is an empty head.


	5. Chapter 5

One morning after breakfast, Troccius came to my door. He said, “You are to come with me.”

I was given old rags to dress in. My ten-house necklace and dream-bracelet he told me to wrap up around my wrist, and then wrap a thick cloth around and around, like I had a wound there. Then he threw an old cloak over me. It had been worn hard, but was warm and skillfully made.

He said, “Can I trust you, Mud-on-Her-Face?”

I said nothing.

He said, “Will you trust me?”

“No,” I said.

He shook his head. “I will not have you bound today. Walk behind me.”

We passed down many long corridors that coiled on themselves over and over like a serpent. Blankets had been thrown over all the doors where there were prisoners, and soldiers walked before us to make sure no one was looking. If they saw the glint of an eye, they would adjust the blanket or stand in front of the door with a drawn sword. This was the way I passed through the prison without being seen.

Outside, there was a cart with bars on the doors drawn by two old horses, and a shackled Dunmer wrapped up in a tattered blanket. I smelled magic all over this cart, and I saw a sign on it that warned of murderers. Ranged around it were six guards on black horses who wore the armor of the Imperial Legion. But I knew from their faces that they were the Emperor’s personal guards.

It was so good to feel the sun on my face, and the bite of the wind, and the cold of the mist. When I heard the birds sing, it was like the first time I heard them. I longed to go dig a hole in a muddy bank by a river and fish, or to tend vegetables and listen to the bees. But there were guards everywhere. So I did not run into the treeline where the sky was purpled like a plum, and the dawn mist was thick like a blanket, and the trees were close like brothers. I let them put shackles on my arms, and I let them put me in the cart. I let them! They locked the door and drove me away from the forest and to the soft-skin cities where the light is too bright and the waste is knee-deep and the noise is an ulcer throbbing in the brain.

Fool! Fool!

Troccius said to the cart driver, “You know what the rules are. Now go.” Then Troccius looked at me. He said, “Be safe.”

This is the first time any soft-skin wished me well, I think.

It was a long ride, and very bumpy. It took two months, on account of the horses being slow, and because in some places the road was very muddy and the cart got stuck. We only left the cart two times a day for meals and relief. The guards kept people from talking to us, and the cart driver pretended we did not live.

The Dunmer who shared my prison was a bigger fool than I was. His name was Jiub, the same sound he made when he blubbered. He said often, “I am no murderer.”

I said, “I do not care.”

But he would always keep talking. He would tell a story about his wife, and the neighbor who slept with her. The story was always very long, and at the end the neighbor killed her because the wife said she would not divorce.

It was a very strange story. I had not thought about men and women promising to sleep only with each other. I thought marriage was an agreement to share a house with a garden, because households are expensive things, and require upkeep. If there was mating, then was it not part of the agreement for the house? And if there were children, were they not also agreements? Were they not used around the house, and intended for the future when one lost one’s teeth and was too old to hunt?

I tell you, the people who call themselves civilized are strange, and their customs are stranger; for it seems that they like to forget they were born in the world, and form as many rules as possible to pretend they have no tie to it at all.

**& &&&&&&**

After two long months, we came to a city on the coast of Morrowind. This was no great seaport like Vivar, but some crooked gray town with a name I forget. There were a few gray houses up in the hills above the harbor, and gray fishing boats at the weatherbeaten docks. The Dunmer there were worn out and hunchbacked, and even their children were sickly and small. When I looked far across the strait, I could see a black haze. It looked like a bank of stormclouds.

“That is Vvardenfell,” said a sailor to the guards.

“The blight has fallen here, too, I see,” said the driver.

The guards left their horses at an inn on the shore, and took us out of the cart and onto a boat. We were locked into a room in the hold, which had a small grimy window. Jiub was chained, but I was not.

“What is the meaning of this?” asked Jiub.

“Indeed!” said the ship’s captain, who had followed us. “This creature is a murderer, is she not? Look at her face; there is a killer there.”

The guards showed him a special paper with three wax seals on it and the captain bowed his head. Then they locked the door. Half of them stayed in the hold, fully armed, and the rest went above deck. The Dunmer and I were left alone.

“That is strange!” said Jiub. “Why would they do that?”

“I do not know,” I said. I thought about telling him my story so that the guards would kill him, because I was sick of his talking. But I said nothing because I was tired of thinking about the strangeness of it. Also, although I am no shaman, I felt a deep foreboding—like there were strange spirits in the air. I felt that Vvardenfell was a bad place full of hauntings; I could smell it, like I can smell magic. I did not know then that lands can have souls.

I thought, “This island does not want me.”

Fool! Fool! You should have said, “Then I do not want the island, and I will not go to it for any emperor’s paper pardon!” You should have unscrewed the bolts on the window and dislocated your shoulders to wiggle out, and then you would have fallen into the water and gone onto the shore. You would have taken rags and fish from the Dunmer bastards, and then you would have gone up into the hills and headed south for the marshes. But you did not, because you were a fool; because for all of your words, you believed in a soft-skin who you had never met, who had plans you had never seen, who gave promises he could not keep.

**& &&&&&&**

We were halfway across the channel when there was a bad storm. The boat rolled a great deal, and sailors shouted on the deck. The guards came below, but it was no use; they retched and lay on the floor. The leader said to the one who guarded our door, “If the ship founders, you must unlock the door and take the scaly to the lifeboat. Get her to Vvardenfell at any cost.”

I was very seasick, and it was a torment; so I begged the guard for my nightly potion, and he gave it to me. I slept.

I had very strange dreams, very terrible dreams. I do not remember much of them. The only one I remember is this: I knelt at the feet of Gold Mask Man in a hall. The garlands on the wall had faded, and the blossoms had crumpled on the floor. The feast had rotted; there was mold on the fruit and the roast pig heaved with maggots. Gold Mask Man looked down at me and held my head in his hands. His hands were cold and stiff. I thought, “This is no good thing; this is the place for a wife or a slave.”

But then the Dunmer prisoner woke me.

“You were dreaming,” he said. “You said such strange things!”

“Then keep them to yourself,” I said.

Then I went to tell the guard there that he had given me a bad potion, but he was gone. There was a deep quiet on the ship; no sound of sailors’ boots, and only the faint creak of the rigging. I felt no motion and I heard no wind or thunder, only the faint peeping of frogs.

After a while, the guards came downstairs and took me by the arms. There were dark circles under their eyes, and they smelled of vomit.

“Let us keep this as civil as possible,” they said. “On deck. Now!”

And because I was sick also, I did not fight them.

The guards took me out into the sunshine, which was chalky and diminished. The town was dull and wet and stank of dead fish, with no more than thirty or forty people in it. There were thatched shacks on the water and an old lighthouse, all in the Dunmer style, but some Imperial buildings had been built against the docks, and there were two swift cutters rocking beside our own. Later they would tell me, “We capture smugglers on the Bitter Coast.” But I know better these days.

I was led down into the Imperial buildings, where the soldiers gave my papers to an old scribe. He took a look at the three wax seals and bowed his head. “We can’t argue with that, now, can we!” he said, and gave me a queer look that I did not like. And then the stamped more seals and added more signatures and wrapped everything in an oilskin.

“Take these papers to Captain Gravius,” he said. When I paused, he said, “Captain Gravius!” and pointed at the door at the other side of the room. All of the guards laughed. I bared my teeth, but I went, for I could hardly kill a room full of armed men. Past that door was another room with another soft-skin, by himself in heavy armor and mail, who looked at my papers and signed and stamped them again.

“How many more must write on this before I am free?” I asked.

He chuckled and said, “I am the last. Now. Keep these on hand at all times.”

Then he gave me a blanket tied with cord and a knapsack. Inside the knapsack was a water-skin, a loaf of bread, a wrapped hunk of roast meat covered in fat, a woolen blanket, a pouch of eighty-seven septims, and a sealed package that was thick with paper. He said, “Go to Balmora. Your contact is Caius Cosades. In case you forget, Caius’ name is on this package, and there are directions to his house printed here. But do not open the package. If you open it, you will be sorry. Now go.”

“But you have not given me the potions for my sleep,” I said.

“I’m very sorry; no one has mentioned anything about potions,” he said. “This is all you are allotted.”

Then he pushed me outside of his office and shut the door, and I was alone.

**& &&&&&&**

First, I opened the package. It contained a thick pad of papers covered in ciphers. I still felt sick from the ocean, so the letters swam before my eyes. I put it back into its oilskin cover for later. Then I ate my meat and walked around the town, which was called Seyda Neen. It is a nothing town. The village of my childhood was a bigger and finer place, and my village was a stinking heap of Guar dung.

So I took my eighty-seven septims and went to the tradehouse. I bought another loaf of bread, fishhooks and string, rope, a short knife for cutting, potions for health, disease, and fatigue, and a spear. It was not a very good spear; I thought that perhaps some lazy child had put it together behind his house.

Then the trader said, “Would you like to buy a spell? I will give you a bargain.”

That is when I discovered that I could buy enchanted parchments, which work once and then disintegrate. How I laughed! So I had not needed the fire to be put into my belly at all; I could pay a wizard to make spells for me! The trader gave me a deal, so I had just enough to buy a parchment that opened locked doors.

“I have one condition,” said the trader. “Do not use this in town, or the Imperials will skin me!”

So I broke into the Imperials’ storage building and stole equipment from them: a set of fine steel armor like the soldiers wore, and a steel mace finely wrought. A watchman caught me as I was coming down the stairs. I threw him out of a window and jumped on top of him, so that he cushioned the fall of my body. The soldiers chased me out of town with swords, and I laughed the entire way and called them old men, then lost them in the swamps. Of course, I lost myself, too, but I didn’t mind. The freedom was better than honey. How good it felt to walk where I liked, between trees like the trees of my own land, among pools and hanging moss, where the ground is always wet. For a time, I sang the songs of my people as loudly as my lungs would allow.

Then the night fell, and with it, the rain. I fled before the wind, the new armor heavy like a millstone and Troccius' cloak soaked through. I realized a terrible thing: I was no longer the child who could live happily under a bush, covered in fleas. I hungered for the rain drumming on a roof, and for the warmth and light of a fire, and for fresh hot bowls of saltrice soup, and for woolen blankets with warm bricks set near the feet. For the first time in many years I thought of my brothers and their warm shoulders. But out in the wilds of the Bitter Coast, where the ground is hot but the wind is cold, where starving Nix Hounds and blighted rats prowl through the tall reeds, where I knew only the outlines of the coast and the major cities from yellow maps, there was no comfort.

I took shelter beneath a tree, but the rain fell so hard that I was soaked through. So I found a rocky outcropping, but it was not big enough, and the wind blew the water in sideways. Then I started moving because I was cold, for I well remembered that if I did not move the cold would kill me. The darkness fell thickly, and all I could see were wisps and the light of Coda Flowers, which glowed like the eyes of bad spirits. I marched for hours, and when I heard the surf I kept within earshot. Sometimes I stepped in the salt pools, which were hot and stank like rot, and splashed through the cold shallows of the inland sea. I could just see the lights of a town which stood high above the water, but I did not turn that way, because I thought of guards.

I found a very strange thing as I was following the beach. There was a sandy hillock standing there, and in the middle of that hill was an old stone door. I was so cold and wet that I opened the door and went inside. Oh, I am a fool many times over, you see; for what fool goes into the first door she sees, in a hill, set apart from the safety of a town?

I smelled dust and decay, but the corridor I stepped into was lit with torches and dry and safe from the wind. My skin prickled; I heard soft whispering, but from where, I did not know. This whispering was familiar to me, but I could not place where I had heard it. Fool!

Down a steep ramp was a closed wooden door. I should have rested in the foyer and taken my leave, but curiosity lured me, and soon I had crept down and cracked it open.

The room was lit by torches, but there was poor ventilation, so smoke crawled on the ceiling and blackened it, and cobwebs hung like black curtains in the corners. A bier stood against the wall; I knew then that I was in a Dark Elf tomb, and that the whispering I heard was their spirits. This was a terrible weight on my soul, for could not these spirits haunt me in my sleep?

But I thought, "Well, once the rain stops, I can leave."

Then I saw the Imperial soft-skin standing with his back to me. He wore no shirt, and his pants and shoes were ragged. His head hung a little, and he leaned on the wall as though he were very tired. I laughed a little to myself, because here was a fool like me, some tired old beggar. So I slipped up beside him with my fine new mace and bashed his skull in.

I heard bone break, and he stumbled beneath my blow, but something was not right. Faster than the wind he jerked upright and whirled on me. I saw a flash of fangs and pale eyes and witch-fire, and then he screamed in an unearthly tongue and raised both open palms. White and purple fire flared in bright glory around him, and the concussion of their blasts popped my ears. Although my hit had been clean, no blood dripped from his wound or stained my weapon. The sinking horror hit my belly, and I fled.

He chased me down the corridor screaming oaths in many voices, and I was struck by a blazing burst of heat that stole the breath out of me. I plunged out of the door streaming smoke and witch-fire, and stumbled on the sand, and fell many times. I sprinted hard toward the lights of town; even the bars of a cell were better than falling prey to beasts from hell.

I did not slow down and I did not look back, but in my heart I knew it was no use; the devil-man was swifter than a falcon. Every missed footstep, I waited for his claws in my back. Halfway to the city, I looked back, and understood why he did not follow. Under the flicker of lightning, I saw the shape of Gold Mask Man standing amongst the trees. A new fear grew in me: I pressed my bracelet with my fingers and prayed hard to all the gods.

That night, I crept into the sewers of Vivec, the greatest city in Vvardenfell, and I slept in a dank hole in a forgotten corner. My dreams were confused and full of terror. I do not remember them, and that is just as well.


	6. Chapter 6

When I woke, I was sick from cold, and the magic had done something wretched to my body. I was tired and felt heavy all over, and the stink of the sewers made my head swim. I crawled outside into the sun and I was very sick for a while, but I took a potion for curing disease, which made me feel a little better.

When I had dried sufficiently, I went inland to escape the sewage, which fills the water around Vivec like a soup. Again I cleaned my clothes and armor and supplies as best I could. Then I set them out to dry, and sunned on the sand for the whole day. I fished with the spear and caught three small fishes, which I ate raw. Then I found three scribs, which are like large beetles, and shelled them for their insides. It was a bitter meal. When I felt well, the sun was setting, but I decided to travel at once, for I was already tired of Vvardenfell, and the stench of Vivec’s sewers had burned my nose and I thought I would never be able to smell anything else again. I decided I would go to Balmora and see this Caius Cosades at once.

For three days I marched hard and slept little. I lived on scribs, and when I rested, it was in burrows and broken houses, like a beast. Ah, Vvardenfell is a wretched place! The rats are everywhere, as big as dogs. Some were full of worms and others were blighted. The blighted ones were bigger, stronger, and twisted, and foamed at the mouth. I had to use the stupid spear to jab them from far away or they would breathe their foul disease over me. A poor weapon that spear was! It had a head that wobbled. I tied it on with cord woven from grasses, but it was no use; I broke it on a Nix Hound outside of Balmora.

Balmora is an ugly gray town that hugs the ground, and is full of Dark Elves; the only good thing about it is its river, which flows strong and clear. I followed the directions and I found the home of Caius Cosades. When I opened the door, I saw that it was not a house, but rather a one-room apartment. There was an old Imperial man sitting on his bed, picking at his toenails with a knife, but quickly he shouted and jumped up. He wore no shirt, and he stank of drink and Skooma. He was a little thin from hunger, and puckered with scars. There was a Skooma pipe and many old books, and clothes on the floor, and old bottles in the corners, and the bed was unmade. It looked like my mother’s house.

But here is a strange thing: although this man stank of Skooma, it did not come from his breath. I saw fresh Skooma in a pipe, but it had not been smoked, and I could tell that Skooma had been burnt on the fire like it was trash. What is more, the man’s eyes and movements were sharp. And this is not right, for when you are on the Skooma your eyes are red and you move with jerky motions like a puppet, and between the smokings of Skooma, your head hangs like you are weary and you cannot walk straight. When you are on the Skooma you think of nothing but Skooma and you have nothing in your house because you have sold it all for Skooma.

“Who are you?” he said. “What do you want?”

“I am Mud-on-Her-Face. I have brought a package for you,” I said.

“You could have knocked,” he said. He took the package. “You have opened this.”

“I did,” I said.

“Didn’t they tell you to leave the letters alone?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “But these letters are about me, and I am my own business. Now, tell me what they say, for I wish to leave the island and go back to my country.”

“One moment, please,” he said, and sat down on the bed. For a while he read the letters, and sometimes he took out a little quill and inkstand, and wrote ciphers on a piece of parchment that sat on his bedside table. Finally, he set the papers aside and looked at me. There was something new in his face and I did not like it: it was something like pity.

“According to these letters,” he said, “I am to be your mentor, and you are to follow my orders."

I bristled and my hand fell to my mace. “No man is my master,” I said.

"I said ‘mentor,’ not ‘master,’" he said. "I'm not your owner, just the person who gives you directions."

"Then give me the directions," I said. "I am ready to go home."

“Very well," he said. "First, you must enter beneath my service as a member of the Imperial Blades.”

"I do not know what that is," I said.

"The Blades?" he said. “We are the Emperor's eyes and ears and hands. Only those of the highest caliber are called to his service. I myself am the Imperial Spymaster here in Morrowind.”

When I did not answer him immediately, he said, “You cannot tell me you have never heard of the Blades.”

“Where would I have heard of you?” I asked.

“Plays, books, ridiculous rumors,” he said. “There were children outside my door pretending to be Blades just last week.”

When I did not answer, he said, “Well, it doesn’t matter. Will you join us or won’t you?”

I shrugged. “I do not want to join the Blades. I want to go home."

He slapped the papers on his knee. “Then the charm will not be lifted, and you’ll never leave this place."

I showed him my teeth and bared my claws.

“Don't even try,” Cosades said, and pressed his fingers to his temples. “It’s not that I mind killing you. It’s just that the Emperor might be put out if I break your neck.”

“They will kill you for it,” I said.

“They will have to find out first,” he said. “Anyway, I want you to leave Morrowind just as much as you want to go. Join the Blades, Mud-on-Her-Face, and I promise to treat you fairly.”

This was surprising: for it took me a moment to realize that he spoke to me in the tongue of the People. Another surprising thing happened to me: I found I did not want to kill this man. I covered my teeth and my claws.

“What is it I must do?” I asked. We spoke in my tongue from then on, unless there was a stranger nearby.

“Simple,” he said. “Your first task is to establish a cover identity.”

“A cover identity?”

“A disguise that you can hide behind. A secret life.”

“I do not hide. This is a foolish thing.”

Then he did a strange thing. He sat up straight, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and breathed out. He did this three times.

"What does this mean?" I asked. "Why do you do that?"

"That is a sacred ritual for tired old men," he said. “All right. Think about it this way. This is a game that we are playing. We are two pawns of an Emperor and—if we are very unfortunate—of gods. It is no good to resist either. After this, you can escape and keep your head low; but for now, I suggest that you become a mercenary. You certainly look and smell like it.”

I liked this. This meant that I smelled like Scratches-behind-Ear.

“I suggest that you take an apartment somewhere in town, not too close to where I live,” he said. “Then I would like you to take some jobs around here in Balmora.”

I laughed. “This is the will of the emperor?” I said. “That I take an apartment and a job in Balmora?”

“Any job will do,” he said. “Try the Fighters’ or Mages’ Guilds, and ask around. There are plenty of jobs here. As for apartments, there are some cheap ones a few blocks away. I can tell you where the landlord is.”

“I did not come to this place to do jobs or live in a soft-skin house,” I said.

“Then I won’t give you any answers,” he said, “and you will not go free.”

“Very well,” I said. “But this is a strange thing, and I do not like it.”

“You do not have to like it,” he said. “You only have to do it.”

This is wisdom in its own fashion.

So he gave me 200 septims, a paper with his landlord’s address, and directions to the Fighter’s Guild. As he put them in my hands, he said, “Explore and learn, and take your time. I am demanding this for your own good. You are green. You are an outlander. You do not know this land, and it is dangerous, full of monsters and madmen and wicked spirits. You must be a careful student of this land if you are to go home. Do you understand?”

I smelled fear on him, and I was astonished, for it was fear for me. I remembered Vidor Troccius, who wished me well; I wonder now if the same god who watched him watched Cosades.

“I understand,” I said.

“Good,” he said, and closed my hands. “Check with me at the end of the month, and don’t do anything stupid. You are no good to me dead.”

&&&&&&&

The Fighter’s Guild stinks of sweat and oil, and you can smell it down the road. Its master is a Nord with red hair who called herself Eydis Fire-Eye. I hated her at once; she lifted her chin when she spoke to me, and there was no respect in her face. She glanced over my armor and said, “Where did you get that ill-fitting mess?”

Then I knew that she knew.

“We don’t abide theft,” she said. “If you’re Thieves’ Guild scum, we won’t take you.”

“I don’t know any Thieves’ Guild,” I said.

Before I could finish my sentence, she bellowed with laughter. “What a mouth you’ve got!” she said. “Fresh off of the boat, eh?”

I thought about cutting her throat, but she had fine armor, and there were two other warriors downstairs, and Cosades besides. So I showed my teeth and I said, “I just need a job.”

“All right, all right!” she said, and laughed like it was all a big joke. “Here, can you sign this? An ‘x’ will do. Very well! Can you read? Fine. Here’s the charter. Good, good. Welcome to the Fighter’s Guild. Here’s a job for you.”

It was a job to kill rats in a woman’s house.

“Rats?” I said.

“Oh, they’re not too big. Don’t worry,” she said.

I could hear her laughing all the way out of the door.

&&&&&&&

An old Dark Elf woman opened the door and looked me up and down.

“I am here to kill rats,” I said sharply.

She covered her nose and jerked her thumb toward the inside of her home. “I trapped two in the bedroom, and there are more in the attic.”

When I walked inside, I had to step on a path between piles and piles of pillows. She had pillows of every color and size, in cotton and silk, in pillowcases and without, some embroidered with many fanciful figures in tiny stitches, and some filled with scented sachets that stank. She hovered just behind me with her arms crossed, as though I would steal them.

When I opened the bedroom doors, I saw two rats, big as dogs, crouched together over her gnawed bed and a mountain of down.

“How did you get these in here?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter! Kill them! Please!” she said.

So I rushed in and started swinging. The old Dark Elf jumped at every impact, and cried, “Don’t damage the wainscoting!”

“What is wainscoting?” I asked, and splattered brains all over her wall.

Then she wept at the great chips in the wood panels on the wall, which was odd. I would have been upset about the loss of the bed.

When she led me up to the attic with a little rusted key, she said in Dunmeri, “Why do they send me beastkind for this work?”

“I do not know,” I said. “Why did you let giant rats in your house?”

Then she jumped and looked at me askance, and threw the door open.

“Just don’t break anything!” she said.

There were no windows, but I saw eyes glowing in the dimness. There was a stench of urine, and the musty stink of rodents. So I wiped my mace on my heel and strode in. These rats were not just any rats; they were cave rats. I am not sure how anyone could fit three cave rats in a tiny attic unless it was a cruel joke. When I strode out again I was covered in blood and fur and eiderdown, for I had struck open all the chests, and there had been pillows inside of them.

“My attic!” cried the woman, and wrung her hands. “If you were my slave I would have you lashed!”

“If you were my slave I would drown you in the river,” I said.

That is how I did not receive any money for killing the rats; but I did not mind terribly, because when I cracked them down, and bore the pain of their savage teeth, I felt like a warrior again. Perhaps it is silly to say so, because they were only rats; but my spirits had been low, and sometimes medicine comes in strange doses.

&&&&&&&

I did two things after that: I went to the landlord, and I paid twenty drakes for a one-room apartment up on the hill.

“You have a good deal here!” he told me. “The chimney was just cleaned out, and all the room needs is a little dusting.”

There were cobwebs hanging from the ceiling that were big enough to wrap myself in and spiders as long as my hand. But I did not complain. I went to the shops and I used up one hundred septims on the necessities of a house, like a broom and cords of firewood and bowls. But it was a good feeling when I swept out all of the cobwebs and opened the windows so the dust flew out. Then I rolled out my new bedroll and organized my meager possessions. When I stepped back I blew up my throat. It felt fine to say, “This is mine, this is my own; I may lock the door and no one may come in unless I say so.”

When I had done that, I went downriver with a wooden bucket. I found a sandy shore and stripped down, and then washed my leggings and my shirt, for they were stained with blood and mud and stank. After that I cleaned my armor. With all of my belongings in my basket, and night fast falling, I walked back into the town.

“Hey!” said a guard to me. “You, there! Argonian! We have decency laws! Put some clothes on.”

“I do not have clothes ready,” I told him. “They are still wet. Let me walk to my home.”

“Not like that, you won’t,” he said.

So that is how I wore my wet clothes home, which was uncomfortable, but I was tired of fighting.

Ah, but it was nice to turn the key in my door, and walk inside, and hang the wet clothes before the fire, and to fry a fish in hot oil. I had with me wine, bread, and simple spices. When the rain came down hard outside, and the wind rattled at my door, I laughed and felt good and warm.

That night, I dreamed nothing but good warm thoughts, and I was well.

 


End file.
